The Religious Sentiment Part 7

It has also been noted that all such words as incomprehensible, unconditioned, infinite, unknowable, are in their nature privatives, they are not a thought but are only one element of a thought. As has been shown in the first chapter, every thought is made up of a positive and a privative, and it is absurd and unnatural to separate the one from the other. The concept man, regarded as a division of the higher concept animal, is made up of man and not-man. In so far as other animals are included under the term "not-man" they do not come into intelligent cognition; but that does not mean that they cannot do so. So "the unconditioned" is really a part of the thought of "the conditioned," the "unknowable" a part of the "knowable," the "infinite" a part of the thought of the "finite." Under material images these privatives, as such, cannot be expressed; but in pure thought which deals with symbols and types alone, they can be.

But if the abstract laws of thought themselves are confined in the limits of one kind of intelligence, then we cannot take an appeal to them to attack this sophism. Therefore on maintaining their integrity the discussion must finally rest. This has been fully recognized by thinkers, one of whom has not long since earnestly called attention to "the urgent necessity of fathoming the psychical mechanism on which rests all our intellectual life."[101-1]

In this endeavor the attempt has been made to show that the logical laws are derived in accordance with the general theory of evolution from the natural or material laws of thinking. These, as I have previously remarked, are those of the a.s.sociation of ideas, and come under the general heads of contiguity and similarity. Such combinations are independent of the aim of the logical laws, which is _correct_ thinking.

A German writer, Dr. Windelband, has therefore argued that as experience, strengthened by hereditary transmission, continued to show that the particular combinations which are in accord with what we call the laws of thought furnished the best, that is, the most useful results, they were adopted in preference to others and finally a.s.sumed as the criteria of truth.

Of course it follows from this that as these laws are merely the outcome of human experience they can have no validity outside of it.

Consequently, adds the writer I have quoted, just as the study of optics teaches us that the human eye yields a very different picture of the external world from that given by the eye of a fly, for instance, and as each of them is equally far from the reality, so the truth which our intelligence enables us to reach is not less remote from that which is the absolutely true. He considers that this is proven by the very nature of the "law of contradiction" itself, which must be inconsistent with the character of absolute thought. For in the latter, positive truth only can exist, therefore no negation, and no law about the relation of affirmative to negative.[102-1]

The latter criticism a.s.sumes that negation is of the nature of error, a mistake drawn from the use of the negative in applied logic. For in formal logic, whether as quant.i.ty or quality, that is, in pure mathematics or abstract thought, the reasoning is just as correct when negatives are employed as when positives, as I have remarked before. The other criticism is more important, for if we can reach the conclusion that the real laws of the universe are other than as we understand them, then our intelligence is not of a kind to represent them.

Such an opinion can be refuted directly. The laws which we profess to know are as operative in the remotest nebulae as in the planet we inhabit. It is altogether likely that countless forms of intelligent beings inhabit the starry wastes, receiving through sensory apparatus widely different from ours very diverse impressions of the external world. All this we know, but we also know that if those beings have defined the laws which underlie phenomena, they have found them to be the same that we have; for were they in the least different, in principle or application, they could not furnish the means, as those we know do, of predicting the recurrence of the celestial motions with unfailing accuracy. Therefore the demonstrations of pure mathematics, such as the relation of an absciss to an ordinate, or of the diameter to the circ.u.mference, must be universally true; and hence the logical laws which are the ultimate criteria of these truths must also be true to every intelligence, real or possible.[103-1]

Another and forcible reply to these objections is that the laws which our intelligence has reached and recognizes as universally true are not only not derived from experience, but are in direct opposition to and are constantly contradicted by it. Neither sense nor imagination has ever portrayed a perfect circle in which the diameter bore to the circ.u.mference the exact proportion which we know it does bear. The very fact that we have learned that our senses are wholly untrustworthy, and that experience is always fallacious, shows that we have tests of truth depending on some other faculty. "Each series of connected facts in nature furnishes the intimation of an order more exact than that which it directly manifests."[104-1]

But, it has been urged, granted that we have reached something like positive knowledge of those laws which are the _order_ of the manifestation of phenomena, the real Inscrutable, the mysterious Unknowable, escapes us still; this is the _nature_ of phenomenal manifestation, "the secret of the Power manifested in Existence."[104-2]

At this point the physicist trips and falls; and here, too, the metaphysician stumbles.

I have already spoken of our apt.i.tude to be frightened by a chimera, and deceived by such words as "nature" and "cause." Laws and rules, by which we express Order, are restrictive only in a condition of intelligence short of completeness, only therefore in that province of thought which concerns itself with material facts. The musician is not fettered by the laws of harmony, but only by those of discord. The truly virtuous man, remarks Aristotle, never has occasion to practise self-denial. Hence, mathematically, "the theory of the intellectual action involves the recognition of a sphere of thought from which all limits are withdrawn."[105-1] True freedom, real being, is only possible when law as such is inexistent. Only the lawless makes the law. When the idea of the laws of order thus disappears in that of free function consistent with perfect order, when, as Kant expresses it, we ascend from the contemplation of things acting according to law, to action according to the representation of law,[105-2] we can, without audacity, believe that we have penetrated the secret of existence, that we have reached the limits of explanation and found one wholly satisfying the highest reason. Intelligence, not apart from phenomena, but parallel with them, not under law, but through perfect harmony above it, _power one with being_, the will which is "the essence of reason," the emanant cause of phenomena, immanent only by the number of its relations we have not learned, this is the satisfying and exhaustive solution. The folly lies not in claiming reason as the absolute, but in a.s.suming that the absolute is beyond and against reason.

There is nothing new in this explanation; and it is none the worse for being old. If Anaxagoras discerned it dimly, and many a one since him has spoken of Intelligence, Reason, Nous or Logos as the constructive factor of the creation; if "all the riper religions of the Orient a.s.sumed as their fundamental principle that unless the Highest penetrates all parts of the Universe, and itself conditions whatever is conditioned, no universal order, no Kosmos, no real existence is thinkable;"[106-1] such inadequate expressions should never obscure the truth that reason in its loftiest flights descries nothing n.o.bler than itself.

The relative, as its name implies, for ever presupposes and points to the absolute, the latter an Intelligence also, not one that renders ours futile and fallacious, but one that imparts to ours the capacity we possess of reaching eternal and ubiquitous truth. The severest mathematical reasoning forces us to this conclusion, and we can dispense with speculation about it.

Only on the principle which here receives its proof, that man has something in him of G.o.d, that the norm of the true holds good throughout, can he know or care anything about divinity. "It takes a G.o.d to discern a G.o.d," profoundly wrote Novalis.

When a religion teaches what reason disclaims, not through lack of testimony but through a denial of the rights of reason, then that religion wars against itself and will fall. Faith is not the acceptance of what intelligence rejects, but a suspension of judgment for want of evidence. A thoroughly religious mind will rejoice when its faith is shaken with doubt; for the doubt indicates increased light rendering perceptible some possible error not before seen.

Least of all should a believer in a divine revelation deny the oneness of intelligence. For if he is right, then the revealed truth he talks about is but relative and partial, and those inspired men who claimed for it the sign manual of the Absolute were fools, insane or liars.

If the various arguments I have rehea.r.s.ed indicate conclusively that in the laws of thought we have the norms of absolute truth--and skepticism on this point can be skepticism and not belief only by virtue of the very law which it doubts--some important corollaries present themselves.

Regarding in the first place the nature of these laws, we find them very different from those of physical necessity--those which are called the laws of nature. The latter are authoritative, they are never means to an end, they admit no exception, they leave no room for error. Not so with the laws of reasoning. Man far more frequently disregards than obeys them; they leave a wide field for fallacy. Wherein then lies that theoretical necessity which is the essence of law? The answer is that the laws of reasoning are _purposive_ only, they are regulative, not const.i.tutive, and their theoretical necessity lies in the end, the result of reasoning, that is, in the knowing, in the recognition of truth. They are what the Germans call _Zweckgesetze_.[108-1]

But in mathematical reasoning and in the processes of physical nature the absolute character of the laws which prevail depends for its final necessity on their consistency, their entire correspondence with the laws of right reasoning. Applied to them the purposive character of the laws is not seen, for their ends are fulfilled. We are brought, therefore, to the momentous conclusion that the manifestation of Order, whether in material or mental processes, "affords a presumption, not measurable indeed but real, of the fulfilment of an end or purpose;"[108-1][TN-7] and this purpose, one which has other objects in view than the continuance of physical processes. The history of mind, from protoplasmic sensation upward, must be a progression, whose end will be worth more than was its beginning, a process, which has for its purpose the satisfaction of the laws of mind. This is nothing else than correct thinking, the attainment of truth.

But this conclusion, reached by a searching criticism of the validity of scientific laws, is precisely that which is the postulate of all developed creeds. "The faith of all historical religions," says Bunsen, "starts from the a.s.sumption of a universal moral order, in which the good is alone the true, and the true is the only good."[109-1]

The purposive nature of the processes of thought, as well as the manner in which they govern the mind, is ill.u.s.trated by the history of man. His actions, whether as an individual or as a nation, are guided by ideas not derived from the outer world, for they do not correspond to actual objects, but from mental pictures of things as he wants them to exist.

These are his hopes, his wishes, his ideals; they are the more potent, and prompt to more vigorous action, the clearer they are to his mind.

Even when he is unconscious of them, they exist as tendencies, or instincts, inherited often from some remote ancestor, perhaps even the heir-loom of a stage of lower life, for they occur where sensation alone is present, and are an important factor in general evolution.

It is usually conceded that this theory of organic development very much attenuates the evidence of what is known as the argument from design in nature, by which the existence of an intelligent Creator is sought to be shown. If the distinction between the formal laws of mathematics, which are those of nature, and logic, which are those of mind, be fully understood, no one will seek such an argument in the former but in the latter only, for they alone, as I have shown, are purposive, and they are wholly so. The only G.o.d that nature points to is an adamantine Fate.

If religion has indeed the object which Bunsen a.s.signs it, physical phenomena cannot concern it. Its votaries should not look to change the operation of natural laws by incantations, prayers or miracles.

Whenever in the material world there presents itself a seeming confusion, it is certain to turn out but an incompleteness of our observation, and on closer inspection it resolves itself into some higher scheme of Order. This is not so in the realm of thought. Wrong thinking never can become right thinking. A profound writer has said: "One explanation only of these facts can be given, viz., that the distinction between _true_ and _false_, between _correct_ and _incorrect_, exists in the processes of the intellect, but not in the region of a physical necessity."[111-1] A religion therefore which claims as its mission the discovery of the true and its identification with the good,--in other words the persuading man that he should always act in accordance with the dictates of right reasoning--should be addressed primarily to the intellect.

As man can attain to certain truths which are without any mixture of fallacy, which when once he comprehends them he can never any more doubt, and which though thus absolute do not fetter his intellect but first give it the use of all its powers to the extent of those truths; so he can conceive of an Intelligence in which all truth is thus without taint of error. Not only is such an Intelligence conceivable, it is necessary to conceive it, in order to complete the scientific induction of "a sphere of thought from which all limits are withdrawn," forced upon us by the demonstrations of the exact sciences.[111-2]

Thus do we reach the foundation for the faith in a moral government of the world, which it has been the uniform characteristic of religions to a.s.sert; but a government, as thus a.n.a.lytically reached, not easily corresponding with that which popular religion speaks of. Such feeble sentiments as mercy, benevolence and effusive love, scarcely find place in this conception of the source of universal order. In this cosmical dust-cloud we inhabit, whose each speck is a sun, man's destiny plays a microscopic part. The vexed question whether ours is the best possible or the worst possible world, drops into startling insignificance.

Religion has taught the abnegation of self; science is first to teach the humiliation of the race. Not for man's behoof were created the greater and the lesser lights, not for his deeds will the sun grow dark or the stars fall, not with any reference to his pains or pleasure was this universe spread upon the night. That Intelligence which pursues its own ends in this All, which sees from first to last the chain of causes which mould human action, measures not its purposes by man's halting sensations. Such an Intelligence is fitly described by the philosopher-poet as one,

"Wo die Gerechtigkeit so Wurzel schlaget, Und Schuld und Unschuld so erhaben waget Da.s.s sie vertritt die Stelle aller Gute."[112-1]

In the scheme of the universe, pain and pleasure, truth and error, has each its fitness, and no single thought or act can be judged apart from all others that ever have been and ever shall be.

Such was the power that was contemplated by the Hebrew prophet, one from which all evil things and all good things come, and who disposes them all to the fulfilment of a final purpose:

"I am the Lord and there is none else. I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil."

"I am G.o.d and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things which are not yet done."[113-1]

In a similar strain the ancient Aryan sang:--

"This do I ask thee, tell me, O Ahura!

Who is he, working good, made the light and also darkness?

Who is he, working good, made the sleep as well as waking?

Who the night, as well as noon and the morning?"

And the reply came:

"Know also this, O pure Zarathustra: through my wisdom, through which was the beginning of the world, so also its end shall be."[113-2]

Or as the Arabian apostle wrote, inspired by the same idea:--

"Praise the name of thy Lord, the Most High, Who hath created and balanced all things, Who hath fixed their destinies and guideth them."

"The Revelation of this book is from the Mighty, the Wise. We have not created the Heavens and the Earth and all that is between them otherwise than with a purpose and for a settled term."[113-3]

FOOTNOTES:

[87-1] _The Emotions and Will_, p. 594. So Professor Tyndall speaks of confining the religious sentiment to "the region of emotion, which is its proper sphere."

[87-2] H. L. Mansel, _The Limits of Religious Thought_, p. 115. (Boston, 1859.)

[87-3] "The _one relation_ which is the ground of all true religion is a total dependence upon G.o.d." William Law, _Address to the Clergy_, p. 12.

"The essential germ of the religious life is concentrated in the absolute feeling of dependence on infinite power." J. D. Morell, _The Philosophy of Religion_, p. 94. (New York, 1849.) This accomplished author, well known for his _History of Philosophy_, is the most able English exponent of the religious views of Schleiermacher and Jacobi.

[90-1] "Weil sie die Welt _eingerichtet_ haben." Creuzer, _Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Vlker_, Bd. I. s. 169. It is not of any importance that Herodotus' etymology is incorrect: what I wish to show is that he and his contemporaries entertained the conception of the G.o.ds as the authors of order.

[92-1] This distinction is well set forth by A. von Humboldt, _Kosmos_, p. 388 (Phila., 1869).

[93-1] "Ueberall den Zufall zu verbannen, zu verhindern, da.s.s in dem Gebiete des Beobachtens und Denkens er nicht zu herrschen scheine, im Gebiete des Handelns nicht herrsche, ist das Streben der Vernunft."

Wilhelm von Humboldt, _Ueber Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea_, iv.

[93-2] "Iste ordo pulcherrimus rerum valde bonarum." _Confessiones_, Lib. xiii. cap. x.x.xv.